Faces of Exit 270 Part 5

Not all-street photography is spontaneous, you sometimes have to position yourself and wait for the moment.  You might say that was the case of the person sitting with the wall of hands.  I simply waited for someone to come and sit on the bench.  The women with the buffalo head -took a couple of minutes and shots before the right moment when she looked up into my camera.  However, most of my shots are grabbed as the moment happens combined with a certain amount of luck.  You might say it requires a certain amount of street awareness or 360 degree eyes that sees the whole canvas.  In most cases I set the camera at aperture F8 and an ISO200 in advance and still have the ability to make quick changes that will cover any variants of light and shadows as I aim the camera. For these images I am using a Sony Nex7 camera with an 18-35 zoom lens and a 16mm 2.8 coupled with a fisheye attachment.

Urban Color

Living in the Southwest, I sometimes take for granted the wonderful rainbow of colors present in this urban environment that I live in.  For this entry in my blog, I present you with the colors and urban shapes of Exit 270.  Because of the cultural diversity of native Indian and Spanish cultures this urban environment is a bright canvas of vibrant colors in the building structures.  Here I present some of these shapes in stark black and white contrasted against the colors of La Placita.

Images With A Story

Sometimes the images one shoots can invoke stories around the events being frozen in time.  I like capturing moments in time where the viewer can explore the image and maybe add their caption to it.  One note concerning the wide angle shot –this is what happens when shooting a panorama image where the subject (person holding a cat) moves across the plain while camera is registering the image, scattering the subject within the fame.  I am rather fond of this image because it appeals to my time machine fantasy of present and future frozen in place.        

More Exit 270 Faces

I find that framing and timing are the key aspects of the faces of Exit 270.  You have to be aware of a person or group that seem to stand out within your space and then work quickly to capture their presence.  I will agree, that it is sometimes just plain luck being in the right spot at the right time.  Then other times it is a matter of just waiting and watching for that moment to happen in front of your camera.  I have been happy to say that no one has complained when I photographed him or her.  I have at all times respected my subjects’ rights not to be photographed.  Working with a Sony Nex7 camera and a 18-35mm zoom lens – allows me to work quickly in this genre of photography.

Los Meurtos

Dia de Los Meurtos, Exit 270 style.  It is the day we mourn those that left, and celebrates those that are here.  35,000 participants take part in the procession that winds for two miles through the downtown streets.  It can be best described as a cross between solemn and an Irish wake.  I shot over 150 photos of the participants in color, while the colors were vibrant and the painted faces were a rainbow of colors, I decided that a conversion to black and white was a better representation of the experience.  I used my street camera (Sony Nex7) with Sony f3.5 18-55mm lens and for wide shots the Sony f2.8 16mm coupled with their fisheye converter lens.  Most of the images were shot at ISO 100 through ISO 400.  I kept my aperture at f8 to f11 and with some help from Photoshop my imagination came to life.